


a phone call away

by WattStalf



Series: Naritaverse Months 16-17 [32]
Category: Durarara!!, ヴぁんぷ! - 成田良悟 | Vamp! Series - Narita Ryohgo
Genre: Gen, Headcanon, More family stuff, Sibling Reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 13:31:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9609587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WattStalf/pseuds/WattStalf
Summary: Manami, do you want to see a magic trick?





	

**Author's Note:**

> I guess I couldn't leave things as they were, I had to write them reuniting. So here they are. I was gonna keep this is as canon-compliant as possible, and then I didn't, cos Manami is dating Mikage. Oops. I will probably write another part to this cos I'm trash.

Mage submits a formal two-week’s notice, requesting some time off to go visit his home country. Relic stares at the neatly typed up paper and doesn’t seem to know what to make of it, before telling the magician that he doesn’t have to do something like that; all he has to do is say that he wants to take a vacation, and no one is going to complain or tell him that he can’t go. Mage confesses that it’s an old habit, and that he wouldn’t feel right without following through with it.

The right strings are pulled and arrangements are made for him to travel, and, in two weeks, he takes his first vacation in a very long time, heading back to Japan.

~X~

It’s something that he’s wanted to do for a while, something that he knows he should have done a long time ago. More than a decade ago, he was turned, and he disappeared from his job and from his family...or, rather, he disappeared from his little sister. He won’t let nostalgia trick him into thinking that either of his parents would ever miss him, but he and Manami had been close.

His memory of the time directly before he was turned and directly after is fuzzy, all blurring together like some sort of fever dream, but he thinks there was a contest for amateur magicians that he was supposed to attend, and Manami was going to be there. He has known for a very long time that she must have worried herself sick over him, that she must think he’s dead, but his years spent serving his former master gave him no freedom to tell her the truth, and during that time, he became like a different person.

It would be a lie if he said he hadn’t been afraid to face her after all that he had done as a vampire.

But he still thinks about her, more and more often lately as he’s come to be a part of this new group of people. They are like a family, and he can feel himself softening up again, as time goes on. He remembers a time when he wanted a family of his own, when he wanted to have all the time for them that his parents never had for him and Manami, and he feels so guilty that he can’t stand it, remembering that she was left all alone for all these years. His sister is still so much a part of who he is, and when he does little magic shows for the inhabitants of the castle, he often catches himself wishing that she were still sitting in the front row.

He doesn’t even know what she looks like, what she does, what sort of person she is now, and more than anything, he wants to see her. It’s much too late for that, to show up in her life after she’s believed him to be dead for so long, but he hopes that it’ll be better late than never. He has to go see her again and tell her the truth.

~X~

Tracking her down isn't as difficult as he thinks it will be. She's moved since his disappearance, but that isn't surprising, and other than that, he locates her with relative ease. He even finds her phone number in his searching, but actually calling her proves to be more difficult for him.

What on earth is he going to say to her? How does a brother, presumed dead for years, go about telling his little sister that he's been alive all this time and too afraid to face her? Will she even believe it’s him, or believe the rather fantastical story of what really happened to him?

He spends a lot of time struggling to come up with a plan, but the longer he spends thinking, the less of an idea he has. Mage knows that he can’t keep putting it off, not when he’s come this far, and he decides to call her and wing it. If she doesn’t believe him, he’ll find a way to convince her, and if she hates him, then at least he gave it a shot.

However, when he calls, he only gets her voicemail.

~X~

Manami isn’t sure why she has a missed call from a number she doesn’t recognize. Very few people call her already, and even fewer that she doesn’t know, and she’s glad that they left a voicemail so she can get to the bottom of things quickly. Holding her phone up to her ear, she listens as the message begins.

The caller only says a few things. “Manami, it’s me. Please...please call me back, if you can.” Nothing entirely out of the ordinary for a voicemail, and nothing worth over thinking, in most cases. But the caller has the voice of a man she knows has been dead for a decade, after pulling quite the disappearing act.

Manami listens to the message over and over again, trying to convince herself that she’s wrong, that she’s just confused. It’s been so long since she’s heard her brother’s voice that there’s no way she could still recognize it that easily. But the two of them talked on the phone so much when he moved out, and she thinks about him often even now, and no matter how many times she listens to that message, she can’t stop thinking,  _ That’s Masashi. _

She knows it can’t be him; she knows that he’s dead, and that she’s never going to see him again, that he’s never going to call her again, but it sounds just like him. Is there anyone who knows about him, who knows what he sounds like and knows how much she’d love to hear his voice? Imagining this as some sort of cruel prank may be a little paranoid, but what other option is there? It could be a stranger with a similar voice, but the caller knew her name and spoke to her like she was familiar. She doesn’t know anyone who sounds like that, other than her older brother.

Her hands shake as she dials the number, and her chest is tight while she waits for the man who sounds like her brother to pick up.

“Manami?”

“Who the hell is this?” she asks.

“Manami,” he repeats, sounding somehow more like Masashi, and she doesn’t know when she started crying. “I don’t...Manami, it’s…”

“Who are you?” Her voice breaks, and she realizes that she’s close to sobbing.

“I’m your brother,” he says. “I know...I don’t know what to say to make you believe me. I don’t really know what I’m trying to say, Manami, but...it’s me.”

“This isn’t funny, whoever you are,” she whimpers.

“I’m so, so sorry I took this long,” he goes on. “Things are complicated, and I...I never knew how to face you. But it’s me, Manami. It’s your older brother. I’m not dead, or missing, I’m…”

“You’re what? What?! You can’t expect me to believe that my brother...my  _ dead _ brother is suddenly back, after...after...after leaving me like that! So, whatever...whatever you’re going to say next, it better be pretty damn convincing.”

There is a long pause before he says, “Would you believe me if I told you I was a vampire?”

She hangs up on him.

~X~

When the lines goes dead, he can’t say that he’s surprised. That wasn’t the best way to lead into it, he knows, but there isn’t really any good way to tell her what happened. However, she’s not likely to answer another call from his number. He had hoped that he would be able to convince her to meet with him, rather than showing up where she lives unannounced, but he knows now that he has no choice.

He hesitates outside of her apartment for quite some time before he knocks. If she still rejects him after seeing his face, which hasn’t aged a bit since the last time they saw each other, then he will give up on her. As much as it will hurt, he will give up on her, because he doesn’t want to force her to accept him back into her life. She has to make that choice on her own. He knocks.

Manami opens the door, and he’s seen a recent picture of her while digging up information on her and was struck by how much she’s changed then, but seeing her in person is another matter entirely. She is so different than the Manami he remembers, with her hair dyed and cut shorter, but her face is the same, and that's all the more noticeable in person, leaving no doubt in his mind that this is his little sister.

“Ma...sashi…” she breathes, and his name sounds odd in her voice. It wasn't often that she called him by name when they were growing up. But the next thing she says is a bit more familiar. “Big...big brother?”

“Like I said,” he replies, somewhat awkwardly, “I'm not dead.”

Fresh tears begin spilling down her cheeks, and she stares at him as if trying to figure out what the proper response is. What she finally settles on is pulling back her fist and punching him square in the jaw with no concern for the fact that they're in front of her apartment, where anyone can see.

Though her hit is hard, likely holding nothing back, it's nothing that he can't handle with his heightened strength. Not to mention the fact that one of his former employers hit a bit harder than that. Mage takes her punch, and the slap that follows, and then the weak pounding against his chest until she slumps against him, and then he pulls her into a hug.

“You're such an asshole,” she sobs. “Such...such an unbelievable asshole…”

“I've been told I can be,” he says, patting her on the back until she's recovered enough to let him into her apartment.

“Tell me everything that happened,” she says. “Tell me why you left and never came back for ten years, and why you never even called me, and why...why you don't look any different.”

“Didn't I tell you already? I'm a vampire.”

“You can't expect me to just believe that,” she says, though her voice is shaking, as she already begins to doubt what she thinks she knows.

“Manami,” he says, asking her a very familiar question, “do you want to see a magic trick?”

~X~

Her older brother is a vampire. Manami has to accept that fact, as she watches him, because there is no other explanation, unless he's spent the last decade studying advanced illusions just to trick her at this very moment. Her older brother is a vampire, and that is why he looks no different after all this time, save for the fangs in his mouth, which don't look fake from where she's sitting.

“Do you believe me now?” he asks, when it’s over.

“Let's say I do. Can I hear your story now?”

“One night after work, I was enticed by a very beautiful, very mysterious woman,” he says, looking embarrassed even as he tries to sound cool.

“So, how drunk were you?”

“I don't think that part of the story is relevant. Little did I know, I was falling into the trap of a vampire, but rather than being drained of all my blood or turned into a mindless servant...I was turned into one of them,” he says. “Still, I was given no freedom of my own, forced to follow the will and whims of my master, and forced to do things that I'm...still not proud of. By the time my master died, I was nothing like myself. I...continued to do unforgivable things, lost in my new freedom. Even as I began to remember my human life, I didn't think...I didn't think I could ever face you again, after everything I’d done.”

She can imagine what sort of things he might be referring to, but she decides then and there that she doesn't care. Whatever he's done in the past doesn't matter in the present, and she has things she's not proud of as well. For a moment, she wonders if he's still not free, if he's luring her into a trap on orders of his master, but she can't bring herself to distrust her brother, the man who practically raised her when her parents wouldn't, even after all this time.

“Do you have somewhere to stay?” she asks him. “It's getting late for me, and I think getting caught up is going to take a while.”

“I've mostly been wandering,” he confesses, and she invites him to spend the night.

~X~

Mage sits on Manami’s couch, not sure what to do with himself now that she's asleep. When the sun starts to rise, he's going to have to head to sleep, and he sets an alarm on his cellphone so he can wake up in the evening and resume talking to her. But for now, he has nothing to do, and so he dials a familiar number.

“Hello?”

“It's me,” he says, smiling even though the person on the other end of the line can't see him.

“How's it going?” his girlfriend asks him. “Have you met up with her?”

“Yeah, I'm in her apartment right now,” he says. “It was...a bit of a challenge getting her to believe me, but I think she does now. Or she's planning to kill me in my sleep tomorrow.”

“Well, after ten years of thinking you're dead, I wouldn't blame her, but personally? I really hope she doesn't.”

“Me too. I hope we can talk more tomorrow, I've told her a lot about the bad things that happened to me, but I haven't had the chance to tell her about the castle or about you, or anything all that good. And I have no idea what she's been doing either.”

“You know? When she has a chance, you should bring her here. I'm sure everyone would love to meet her! At least, I know I would.”

Mage has thought about that before. If possible, he’d love to have Manami be a part of his life again and, if possible, he’d love to introduce her to all of his friends. He thinks she would like it there.

“I'll ask her about it when I get the chance,” he replies.

~X~

When he wakes up the next evening, Manami is eating dinner and he sits down across the table from her.

“You don’t want anything, do you? I mean, I kind of assumed you wouldn’t need it, so I didn’t make you anything, but if you want me to…”

“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “Sorry that this is the only time we can really talk. I try to stay awake during the day whenever I can, but it gets really draining at times, and I’m still adjusting to the change in time zones.”

She gives a small laugh, and when he looks confused, she replies, “Sorry, it’s just funny to hear a vampire complaining about jet lag. ...somehow it sounds a little funnier to hear myself come out and say that so casually.”

“You’ll get used to it,” he replies.

“So, where are you living nowadays?” she asks after a moment of awkward silence.

“There’s this island in Germany. I was brought there through work...oh, after my master died, I took up work with a vampire organization.”

“How can you say that with a straight face?”

“I told you, you get used to it. Anyway, there’s a very powerful supernatural presence on that island, there are a lot of us. Currently, I’m serving a young vampire who happens to be the master of the castle on that island.”

“So, there are a lot of you?” she asks.

“Oh, yes, and most of them are strange for a variety of reasons besides being vampires. Honestly, I have a lot of stories that might take all night! But I haven’t heard anything about you yet,” he says. “Rather than going on about myself...I’d like to hear what happened while I was gone.”

“Well, I mean, everyone thinks you’re dead. I knew something was wrong right away, when you didn’t call me and wouldn’t take my calls but mom and dad...well, they just told me you were tired of me bothering you, but then you didn’t show up to the magic show and I knew…” She sighs. “They looked for you for a little while, but pretty soon, everyone gave up. And so everyone decided you were dead.”

“I figured as much. Do you talk to our parents much?”

“Not since college. You know how they are.” She shrugs and he nods, because he knows exactly how they are.

“What about you? What have you been doing?”

She hesitates before she answers. “I’m working at a store right now. I...had a different job up until kind of recently, but it fell through, so now I’m here. I’m waiting on something, trying to work something out that’s really important to me.”

“What is it?”

“I…” She doesn’t know how to tell him, and he asks her a different question.

“What was the job before?”

“I worked as the assistant to a secretary. But the man she works for…” Again, Manami hesitates. “Maybe I should start from the beginning. But it’s...well, it’s kind of a long story.”

“I have as long as you need,” her brother replies. “Remember, I don’t have to sleep tonight.”

So she tells him about her series of unsuccessful relationships, and she tells him about the last one, the one who truly broke what was left of her heart, and then she told him about the night she was going to end her life, and the man named Izaya.

~X~

“But he didn’t die that night, so it’s kind of back to square one. I want to hurt him, as badly as possible, but I have to figure out how to go about doing that first,” she says.

Mage, to his credit, is ready to storm out of her apartment, track this man down, and kick his ass or worse, and he says as much. “I can do a lot worse to him than you probably realize. If you want him dead and you want no one to find him...trust me, I have my ways.”

She seems surprised, as if she expected him to shame her for wanting such severe revenge or for having such a petty reason to live, as if she expected him to scold her for ever wanting to end her own life. But he is only supportive, knowing better than anyone that life takes people in a variety of directions. Her surprise turns to a smile as she says, “Thanks, but I gotta figure this out on my own. If I don’t do that, then…”

“I understand,” he says. “But, when it’s all over...I know this isn’t my place, but what will you do then? Will you still want to…?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so,” she confesses. “A lot of things have changed, and now...now you’re back, so that changes things to. I don’t really know.”

“For what it’s worth, I’d like it if you kept on living. I want to be able to be a part of your life again, and do things right this time. I also have so many people I want you to meet, so many things I want to show you.”

“What, on your vampire island?”

“Do you think you’d like to visit there with me someday?”

Manami nods. “I wanna see what’s been keeping you away from me for so long.”

It’s late, and he knows that he should be sending her to bed, but he decides to tell her a little bit about things. He tells her about Relic, and a little about Ferret as well, and about their familiars, and about Pirie, and as much about the viscount as he can without potentially spoiling the surprise.

Finally, he says, “And I...I do have a girlfriend.”

“Oh, really?” asks Manami. “Me too.”

For a moment, he thinks he’s misheard her, and he blinks a few times before he responds. “You too?”

“Yeah. Her name is Mikage Sharaku.”

“It is?”

“It is,” she says, before she starts laughing. “Seriously, you don’t have to look so surprised!”

“Well, you have to remember, I haven’t seen you since you were a teenager, and back then, you weren’t...well…”

“Into girls? Like I said, a lot of things have changed. Maybe I just got tired of guys,” she jokes. “No, but really. What I’ve got with Mikage, it’s really special. It’s not...a problem, is it?”

“No, of course not!” he says sincerely, because it isn’t. As surprised as he is, it’s his little sister, and it’s not like it’s really that unusual anymore. “Whatever makes you happy is what I want for you. You deserve it, you know?”

“Thank you,” she says quietly.

“Does she know about me?”

“She knows I have a brother, but she thinks you’re dead. I haven’t told her about all this yet. She probably won’t believe me if I do, so it might take me some time to break it to her, but when I do, I hope you can meet her.”

“It’d be my pleasure,” he replies. “I’m sorry.”

“What about?”

“Everything. I should have come back sooner. I should have been smarter, I shouldn’t have ever gotten tricked or turned, I should have been there for you. I’m so sorry.”

“Big brother, I...look, we can both agree you’re an idiot. About a lot of things. And I should probably be a lot more mad at you than I am right now, but I’m not. You were the only person...you were always the only person who ever cared about me. Even if I shouldn’t forgive you right away, or even if I should never forgive you for something like this, I just can’t help it. I already lost you once, I don’t wanna lose you again when you’re right in front of me.”

“I’m never going anywhere, Manami,” he promises her. “Even when I have to go back home, I’m only going to be a phone call away. Just like I used to be. Just like old times, okay?”

“Just like old times,” she agrees.

“Don’t you need to get to sleep, though? It’s already so late. We’ve got plenty of time to talk while I’m still on vacation, and then we can plan for your vacation, so don’t worry about staying up late to talk to me.”

“I probably should go to sleep,” she agrees. “But, before I do...can you show me another magic trick?”


End file.
